Strength In Your Tears
by yas-m
Summary: He asks her if she is with him, and she knows the answer before he finishes the question. Companion piece to "The Hardest Part". Could be read separately. Set during The Incident.


**Title:** Strength In Your Tears

**Pairing: **Jack/Kate

**Rating:** PG-13

**Spoilers:** All the way to s5 finale

**Summary:** He asks her if she is with him, and she knows the answer before he finishes the question

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing.

* * *

"but nothing... nothing in my life has ever felt so right. And I just need you to believe that."

_Well, I wish I shared your faith._

"it's about to happen,"

_I was thinking that I might go with you -- for old time's sake? I want to help._

"Are you with me on this?"

_I have always been with you._

No matter how many times he asks you this, and no matter how many different ways he words his question, your answer will always be one and the same. But he wants to hear it. He needs to hear it again. From you. That one word somehow manages to lift the weight of the world off of his shoulder every time. But this time the words can't escape your lips as easily as any of the times before. Not because you are hesitating with what to answer. You will follow him to the ends of the world if he asks you to as long as you are with him. No, what he is asking this time is harder because after you say yes you might never be with him again.

_I can't leave without you._

You swallow. But the lump in your throat refuses to let go. He is asking you to erase the past three years of your life. To erase ever knowing him. Ever loving him. He makes things rational and mentions Aaron. Your son. He mentions Claire. Your son's mother. You hate that he goes there but you know he is right. But once again he fails to see that your initial hesitation was not about Aaron. You feel guilt run through you as you admit to yourself that you had not thought about Aaron when Jack first told you his plan. No. You thought about yourself. About what it means that Oceanic 815 lands safely. You'd be in handcuffs and on your way to prison. But it was not even that detail that shattered you and was slowly eating at you.

_It was not all misery._

And you truly believe it. Those few months when you were finally one are all you care about. Crashing on island, losing your closest friends, being kidnapped, tortured, shot at, everything that happened paled in importance, all the misery was erased by the memory of his fingers tracing lightly over your skin. You did not want to lose that. The feeling of his warm breath against your skin, of his body moving in rhythm with yours. Those memories are what he is asking you to erase. The way his fingers played with your curls as you lay naked against him every morning, the way his strong back tensed under your fingernails as you came together, his weight on top you as you lay consumed, breathing heavily, and his ragged voice against your ear "I love you".

_Enough of it was._

But you understand what he means. You can see it in his eyes when he looks at you. His eyes looking in you, searching your soul for an answer, and you understand his fear. You understand what the three years did to him, how they broke him down and left him a shadow of who he truly is. You know what it meant for him being cast as the leader on the first day of your crash. Each day after the crash was a struggle. A struggle against the island, against the problems and chaos of the island. A struggle to keep everyone alive. A struggle to stay alive. Each day he had to dig deeper into his demons to try to come up on top. You remember his face the night the Marshall died. You remember the way his breath caught in his throat when Claire went missing. You still feel his cold skin under your fingertips when he collapsed during Boone's funeral. You still hear his silent sobs from behind the closed door the night Ana and Libby were killed. You remember his sad smile when Juliet lifted the bag off your head on the wrong side of the glass divide, his strong heartbroken voice screaming for you to run – to take Sawyer and run - and you still tear up when you remember the clicking sound as he turned off the walkie talkie. You remember the sound of his footsteps on deck late at night after everyone one the Searcher had gone to sleep. He'd pace there for hours, trying to come to terms with leaving your friends behind, with having to lie to the whole world about what happened to them. You remember the morning before his father's wake and how he insisted on helping you bathe Aaron – it's therapeutic he said, and years later you came to understand what it means. You also remember him packing a bag after the wake and leaving, without another glance towards Aaron, his eyes apologetic but also clouded with fear and guilt. You remember the smell of alcohol in the living room when you could not bring yourself to tell him about the promise. The stupid little promise. And how suddenly that ring on your finger was too heavy, it's sudden weight bringing you crashing to your knees. You know that you have broken him countless times. You've broken his heart more than once and watched him mend yours with pieces of his own.

"Yes."

You know he needs this. You need to give him this. To save him. To erase all that misery for him. To stop him from ever having to live through that. And you forget what it could to you because you have to do this. You have to do it this time, for him.


End file.
